A Spanish Christmas

At Christmas the British seem to lean towards excess; too much; food-drink-spending…excess. The Spanish are a quiet and civilised people, they come out onto the streets in large numbers; whole families, to celebrate the festive season. In Spain a few gifts are exchanged at Christmas, but it’s not the main event. In Spain the real festivities take place around the first weekend in January. They commemorate the arrival of the 3 Wise Men and the giving of their gifts to the baby Jesus. This is when the Spanish give their gifts to each other and sit down together for a festive meal, incuding a festive cake called Roscon de Navidad. So in our terms, the 3 Kings Fiesta is like our Christmas Eve and the following day, is like our Christmas Day.

Coming into town on Fiesta Day all was quiet, calm and, well, to be honest, ordinary. For us, Christmas eve is a panic fuelled rush to get everything perfect. The streets are crammed with shoppers, the roads with cars and our heads with images of the perfect family celebration, which we must, at all costs, emulate. When it comes to a British Christmas, there is no serene duck gliding smoothly across the water whilst underneath, paddling frantically; we are frantic personified, as we spend more time and money than we have, or should, making something once so very simple, unspeakably complex.

Now, I didn’t nose about in the homes of Spanish people, nor did I conduct an in depth survey, but from what I saw, this most holy of times is just that. The town has Christmas lights, but the shops barely give Christmas a mention. There’s no hard sell here. Christmas feels optional.

Fiesta Day, the equivalent of our Christmas Eve, saw runners race for festive prizes and fun at the start the day, and just after dark, a carnival style parade showcasing the 3 wise men throwing sweets to the crowds. In between these 2 main events, people came out to stroll, have coffees and lunches and enjoy the sun. It was a family day, with most folks off work. The relaxed atmosphere was palpable. I wondered what had happened to us, the British, to take something so perfectly lovely and make it into what we have now, competitive house dressing and gift giving. And I wondered why the Spanish have not fallen foul of the rampant commercialism that has consumed our festive seasons and made us all the poorer in every sense.

Torre Del Gerro, Denia

At the start of our travels, we decided to start a video blog. As Christmas was coming we went all extravagant and bought a drone.

The local landmark, Torre Del Gerro, provided the perfect subject on which to test our skills; or lack of them.

These ancient towers, dating from the 16th century, are dotted along the Spanish coast and had the same role as the English Martello towers. Their original use was to spot the Berber pirates as they approached.

The tower is known locally, within the ex-pat circles (and possibly amongst the Spanish too) as The Pepperpot. It’s a popular local walk, as it has a steady incline and is easy under foot.

Once at the Tower, face the sea and catch your breath. For spectacular views; left for Denia, and right, for the lighthouse at Cap de Sant Antoni. Behind you towers the rocky face of Montgo, with the ‘Ghost Town’ nestling at it’s base.

Christmas In A Can

While the rest of our fellow campers fished out turkeys from their freezers and made full roast lunches with all the trimmings, we went bijou.

With no oven and no room for a mountain of gifts, we came up with a plan:

KEEP IT SIMPLE.

It turns out that simple is good, unlike this movie, which is bad; sorry about that!

Afore Ye Go

We’ve never been away from our home for six months, six weeks; yes.

Six weeks away in the summer? How hard can it be? That depends on the sort of person you are. Are you the walk out of your home and lock the door as you leave sort of person? The fussy, strip the beds and empty the fridge type, or the very very fussy, clean your home from top to bottom, tidy the garden to within an inch of its life, and appoint someone to house-sit fanatic. We fall lazily into the shut the door and go group. But we’re not going for six weeks, we’re going for 6 months, in the winter. We need to up our game.

It’s not simply winter that draws on, it’s the winter of our lives that’s closing in fast, and we want to run from both, as fast as our decrepit old legs will carry us.

The truth is, that, because we’re grown ups, we can’t leggit without a look back, and can’t bust a move without a lot of preparation, and/or help. We know that during the winter the plumbing freezes and power fails, and not just the house. Stuff had to be done before the great escape so we made a list and began ticking off the days and jobs as months passed. Things were completed, added, or removed as time passed.

None of it is simple, you see we have no kitchen, not even a building to fit kitchen units and white goods in to. We live in a one up one down house, the kitchen has to be tacked onto the outside of our little box we call home. What happened to the kitchen extension we had? Oh, p-lease don’t ask. I will say that the sofa went to the tip and the cooker and fridge are now in the living room, the only room on the ground floor. There was a lot for us to do and a lot of tea to drink, before we left the UK for winter in our little red T4 VW camper van.

We made a 4 minute, in depth, movie of how we prepared to leave our home empty for 6 months. We hope it inspires you to follow us to the sun. If you’re of a delicate disposition, you may want to look away NOW!

Enjoy.

Spanish Fly

Spanish Fly

Now normally when it comes to creatures of nature, our philosophy is ‘live and let live’. We have a rigid no kill policy. Wasps are free to bother our picnics, slugs and snails though not welcome in the garden are never killed and the woodlice that frequent our living room are treated like small pets.

Mrs Wally ‘Don’t flush them down the loo!

‘Wally ‘But they’re essentially aquatic creatures like shrimps.’

Apparently not.

Our house has been visited by several species of birds, the occasional fox we even had a bat crawl into our living room on all fours. Each in turn was released unmolested. But let’s face it we all have our limits, lines must be drawn, everyone must know where they stand.

When an animal attempts to consume you, in your own bed, while you are asleep, that is pushing the bounds of acceptable behaviour. No-one wants to wake up to a scene from ‘Mr and Mrs Elephant Man’, blotchy and swollen bodies are not aesthetically pleasing.

Counter measures were deployed to little effect until patience was stretched beyond limits, death was the ultimate solution and I wasn’t prepared to die!

After several weeks of bloody attrition we’ve formed an amicable agreement with our tormenters, we offer them a small amount of our blood and in return they don’t give a ****. Let’s face it you can’t bargain with an anarchist.